COVID-19 - Contingency Work

These pages were last updated by Mr R Smith on Friday 5th June 2020

Principal's Letter to Parents - Monday 1st June 2020

Dear Parents,

welcome back to Term 6, one that will again be a little different from normal. The purpose of this email is to clarify a number of points about the logistics of our school reopening for our 1st wave return this week:

Firstly, we have only heard back from a couple of key workers as to whether you do/do not intend to return your child to school this week. Therefore, in order for us to plan for your child's return please could you complete the Return to School we previously sent out (reattached) as soon as possible.

Year Group

First date in school

Drop off time

Collection time (Mon – Thurs)

Collection time (Fri)

Child care

for Key Workers
(as previously)

Wednesday 3rd June

08.40

(as previous,
as required)

(as previous,
as required)

Acorns - Yr.R

Wednesday 3rd June

09.10

14.30

13.30

Oaks – Yr.1

Thursday 4th June

09.00

14.40

13.40

Poplars – Yr.6

Thursday 4th June

08.50

14.50

13.50

Due to the small numbers of children who will be returning in Yr.R and Yr.1 at this stage, we will be amalgamating these two classes into one teaching group for the remainder of this term. This class will be based in Acorns classroom since they have access to Acorns outside playspace. This class will be taught by Mrs Nicholson and Mrs Hawkins. They will be supported by Mrs Sharland and Mrs Harvey.

The number of Yr.6 children who will be returning is a little higher. They will be based in Willows classroom and will be taught by Mr Ashbee-Dobbins and Mrs Temple-Brown.

In order to enable social-distancing as much as possible, children in each class will be sub-divided down into smaller "bubbles"/groups of approx' 4-5 pupils. They will remain in these "bubbles" throughout the week and will be asked not to come into close contact with other children from other "bubbles". To help your child understand the concept and importance of social-distancing, please take a moment to read and discuss the attached short story "Albert" with your child. However, even with the best will in the world, we cannot guarantee that we can keep all children 2m apart 100% of the time.

For any parent of a child in Yr.R, Yr.1, Yr.6 or a key-worker, if we have not heard from you by the time we reopen on Wednesday 3rd June, we shall assume that your child is not returning to us at present.

As mentioned previously, we will not be able to accomodate any children whose parents wish to return them to school on ad hoc basis due to a number of logistical reasons. Therefore we will implement a 2nd wave return on Monday 22nd June; if you - as many of you have indicated - intend to wait before deciding whether to return your child to school, the next opportunity will be on Monday 22nd June. We ask that you contact the school directly, prior to this date to inform us if you wish your child to join this 2nd wave.

During the next few weeks I'm afraid that parents will not be able to come onto the school site. For drop off/collection, we ask that you queue 2m apart to the playground gate at the appointed times (see above). Likewise, the front Reception will not be open; should you require to contact school, please could you do so via phone or email.

We have already said that, for this period, school uniform will not be required as you would need to be washing it on a daily basis - we trust that this will aid you in giving your child clean clothes each day. As the weather is warm and the children are going to be outside more than usual, we would advise them to have sunscreen and/or a sun hat. All children will also need their water bottle since the water fountain will have to be closed off.

Pupils are not required to / cannot bring in any items from home, all equipment will be supplied in school. Likewise, they will not be able to take any items home from school.

For Reception children, the ususal milk and fruit snack are temporarily unavailable.

If you return your child to school but then - at some point - have to keep them at home due to illness, please understand that we will have to ask in more detail than usual the nature of that illness before we can accept them back onto site.

If any of our pupils' family or friends have been affected directly by Covid, please could you let us know so that we can put additional support in place for them.

For pupils who are remaining at home, we have created a "Wellbeing Journal" for them to engage with. This will be posted on to our Covid Contingency pages on the school website for you to print at home; if you would prefer us to print a copy for you to then come and collect, please email Admin' to that affect.

We have a lot of left-over pupil's bags, coats, etc. that need to be collected. These will be placed in front of the building during school hours for parents to come and collect.

(PS. We've errected a gazebo on our field to provide some shelter for pupils but if anyone has a space we could borrow for a few weeks, we would be very grateful.)

I think about covers it all for the moment. Please accept our apologies for such a long list of "do's" and "don'ts".

Wiltshire School Nursing Service - The duty school nurses available at the end of the phone Monday-Friday 9-5pm should you require any support with your school age child. This is available permanently for all parents to access for advice and support. If you would like support please call one of our nurses through our single point of access on 0300 2470090.:

If you have found any other useful sites or resources you would like us to add to this list, please just contact us.

Government Guidance

Following Government guidance, as of Monday 23rd March Ogbourne CofE Primary School asks parents to keep their children at home, wherever possible. We have been asked to remain open only for those children who absolutely have to attend.

As a country, we all need to do what we can to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus. That is why the government has given clear guidance on self-isolation, household isolation and social distancing. And the most recent scientific advice on how to further limit the spread of COVID-19 is clear. If children can stay safely at home, they should, to limit the chance of the virus spreading.

It is important to underline that schools, all childcare settings (including early years settings, childminders and providers of childcare for school-age children), colleges and other educational establishments, remain safe places for children. But the fewer children making the journey to school, and the fewer children in educational settings, the lower the risk that the virus can spread and infect vulnerable individuals in wider society.

For further Government infomation "Guidance for schools, childcare providers, colleges and local authorities in England on maintaining educational provision" please go to:

Ogbourne School Closure

If Ogbourne School has to close, the decision will be one that we have been directed to take. Under such circumstances, we would like to share the following information:

this new page has been created especially on our school website setting work for parents and children to access contingency work

staff will check emails regularly during their working hours

in addition to the work detailed below, staff will be adding to and updating this page every 2-3 days

staff have created temporary email addresses on which they can be contacted directly during their working hours:acornsogbourne@hotmail.comoaksogbourne@outlook.comogbournewillows@outlook.comogbournepoplars@outlook.com

there is no expectation for parents to email their child’s completed work to staff, nor for staff to be returning completed work during this period